Monday, July 27, 2015

I'm a MISSIONARY!

Area: Kearney, MissouriCompanion: Elder Anderton

Hello family! It's about 5:30 am
here in the beautiful state of Missouri with partly clouded sky's and
about a 110 heat index. Over there is some road kill on the side of the
road, don't mind it, you will be seeing that every day of your life out
here! Over there you will see a guy with only one tooth walking his
dog. Oh! There he is right on schedule! The guy with the 12' lift on his pickup truck!

Can you tell that it's 5:30 AM? I'm in a fantastic mood right now! Why wouldn't I be? I'M A MISSIONARY!!

Sounds
like y'all are having some fun experiences with the cabin. I hope the guests will be more respectful about others property.

Well,
great news for this part of town! We had an amazing lesson with Dillon
and Daylin yesterday at the Historic Liberty Jail. Dillon is solid for
this Saturday!
We talked to him about receiving the Priesthood and that there is a
possibility of him baptizing Daylin in a week or two and they both liked
that idea. Daylin is coming right along and progressing very quickly.
This whole situation has been a little stressful with the time crunch
of Dillon leaving for college and same with Daylin, but the Lord has a
bigger plan for them. It has been amazing to see the Lord's hand in
Dillon's life. When we first met him he had didn't know how to pray and
he had no idea what repentance was. He was 20 years old and had not
repented before. He always told us about all this guilt he had and that
ever since he started praying it was leaving him. Elder Anderton and I
know that we didn't make this change in him at all. We were just the
vessels for the Lord to bring this message forth. At this lesson we
learned that Daylin was praying for Dillon to be in contact with Godly
men and her prayer was answered the next day with Elder Anderton and I
coming across him working on his Jeep. There are about 10 others in the
ward as well who have become good friends with Dillon.

Kristin is moving to California for sure and might drive through Utah. We will find out for sure probably tomorrow so I'll giver her your number Mom and maybe you guys can meet up for lunch somewhere!

We had a fantastic ward party on Friday!
That is where those pictures of the four of us missionaries with the
hats on came from (by text). We led the groups of pioneers around the field.
That was really fun and we also had one of our investigators show up to
it!

This week I was studying in John
6:5-14 about Jesus Christ feeding the 5,000 and had a completely
different outlook on what it means to me. We read in there about how
they only had 5 loves of bread and 2 fish but there was 5,000 to feed.
Rather than telling them to go and buy more, Jesus takes what is there,
blesses it, then gives it to the people. The moral that I learned was Andrew gave 100% of what he had, which he know wasn't enough to feed
the whole multitude, but he gave it all to Christ and through Christ it
was magnified to feed 5,000 people.

Here
is a story that our mission president sent us today. As a mission we
have been studying the Atonement in depth in the Book of Mormon.

From President Vest:

While
studying and pondering our atonement initiative, I came across the
following simple story that was shared by President Hinckley. It is
something of a parable. I hope it will be a reminder for us all.

“Years
ago there was a little one-room schoolhouse in the mountains of
Virginia where the boys were so rough that no teacher had been able to
handle them.

“A
young, inexperienced teacher applied, and the old director scanned him
and asked: ‘Young fellow, do you know that you are asking for an awful
beating? Every teacher that we have had here for years has had to take
one.’

“‘I will risk it,’ he replied.

“The
first day of school came, and the teacher appeared for duty. One big
fellow named Tom whispered: ‘I won’t need any help with this one. I can
lick him myself.’

“The
teacher said, ‘Good morning, boys, we have come to conduct school.’
They yelled and made fun at the top of their voices. ‘Now, I want a good
school, but I confess that I do not know how unless you help me.
Suppose we have a few rules. You tell me, and I will write them on the
blackboard.’

“‘Now,’
said the teacher, ‘a law is not good unless there is a penalty
attached. What shall we do with one who breaks the rules?’

“‘Beat him across the back ten times without his coat on,’ came the response from the class.

“‘That
is pretty severe, boys. Are you sure that you are ready to stand by
it?’ Another yelled, ‘I second the motion,’ and the teacher said, ‘All
right, we will live by them! Class, come to order!’

“In
a day or so, ‘Big Tom’ found that his lunch had been stolen. The thief
was located—a little hungry fellow, about ten years old. ‘We have found
the thief and he must be punished according to your rule—ten stripes
across the back. Jim, come up here!’ the teacher said.“The
little fellow, trembling, came up slowly with a big coat fastened up to
his neck and pleaded, ‘Teacher, you can lick me as hard as you like,
but please, don’t take my coat off!’“‘Take your coat off,’ the teacher said. ‘You helped make the rules!’

“‘Oh,
teacher, don’t make me!’ He began to unbutton, and what did the teacher
see? The boy had no shirt on, and revealed a bony little crippled body.

“‘How
can I whip this child?’ he thought. ‘But I must, I must do something if
I am to keep this school.’ Everything was quiet as death.

“‘How come you aren’t wearing a shirt, Jim?’

“He
replied, ‘My father died and my mother is very poor. I have only one
shirt and she is washing it today, and I wore my brother’s big coat to
keep me warm.’

“The
teacher, with rod in hand, hesitated. Just then ‘Big Tom’ jumped to his
feet and said, ‘Teacher, if you don’t object, I will take Jim’s licking
for him.’

“‘Very well, there is a certain law that one can become a substitute for another. Are you all agreed?’

“Off
came Tom’s coat, and after five strokes the rod broke! The teacher
bowed his head in his hands and thought, ‘How can I finish this awful
task?’ Then he heard the class sobbing, and what did he see? Little Jim
had reached up and caught Tom with both arms around his neck. ‘Tom, I’m
sorry that I stole your lunch, but I was awful hungry. Tom, I will love
you till I die for taking my licking for me! Yes, I will love you
forever!’”

To lift a phrase from this simple story, Jesus, my Redeemer, has taken “my licking for me” and yours for you.